Zamfara: Yari, APC at war over primaries

Governor Abdulaziz Yari of Zamfara on Monday claimed that all primary elections of the All Progressives Congress (APC) ahead of the 2019 general elections have been concluded in the state.

Yari’s declaration came at a time when representatives of the party from the APC National Headquarters said no election was held at all.

Yari alleged that the primaries had earlier faced challenges in the state following the failure of the first national committee Chairman, Abubakar Fari, to conduct a credible exercise.

“Since we must conduct elections and declare results before 12 midnight of Oct. 7, we have done what is expected of us and we have submitted the results to the APC authorities”, NAN quoted him as saying.
“We do not know why those people (the second national committee led by Maj. Gen. Abubakar Mustapha (rtd.) are here”.

He said it was in order to meet the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) deadline that results were collated from all the 147 wards of the 14 local government areas of the state and submitted to the party.

The governor then directed the party Chairman in the state, Alhaji Lawali Liman to announce winners of the primaries for governorship, national and state assemblies.

According to the results, Alhaji Muktar Idris won the governorship ticket while Yari was elected as the party’s senatorial candidate for Zamfara West, Sen. Tijjani Kaura for Zamfara North and Alhaji Ikira Bilbis for Zamfara Central.

However, Mustapha, the Chairman of the APC committee, said, “as far as the committee charged with the responsibility of conducting the primary elections in Zamfara is concerned, no election was conducted at all.

“We have all the election materials intact in our position, and we are going to submit same as well as our report to the national secretariat of our party which mandated us to come and conduct the election.
“I will not talk any further but we should wait for the next line of action from the national headquarters of our party”.